10/29/25 Board of Education Meeting

001Everyone, welcome. I apologize that we are a few minutes, couple minutes late getting started. Thank you for being here at the earlier time tonight of 6:30. Adequate notice has been given and I would ask everyone to um rise and join us in saying the pledge. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And Chris, would you read the motion to adopt the agenda? >> I move that we adopt the agenda as posted. >> Second. >> Okay, it's been moved and seconded. All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Okay, motion passes. We're moving now to recognizing our own. And I'm going to ask um Gina our chief communications officer,

002to recognize William and Lauren Kerry. >> Good evening. Um I'm actually here with Dr. Murdoch from Glenidge and she's gonna um do our formal presentation. >> Great. Thank you, Dr. Murdoch. >> Welcome. Good evening, everyone. You know, today is you're too bright for drugs, so that's why I'm the brightest thing in the room. Um so um in the aftermath of the heartbreaking acts of vandalism that occurred on our campus last spring, William and Lauren Carrie, parents of Patrick and Charles, a first grader and a family center student, reached out with the simple but powerful question. How can we come together as a community to heal? From that conversation, the idea of our very first school beautifification day was born. The carries collaborated with the PTO to secure funding and promote the event, which occurred on

003Saturday, September 20th. This day was more than just planting flowers. And I even found myself getting emotional throughout the time of how many people showed up, who showed up, and just the the idea of the day. The day was about restoring beauty, fostering unity, and demonstrating the love and resilience that define our school community. What began as a response to harm has grown into a movement of hope and togetherness. As we beautified our grounds, we also strengthened the roots of our community, reminding everyone, especially our babies, that kindness, connection, and care will always triumph over negativ negativity. IT CARRIES [applause] Thank you very much to the Carrie family. Okay. Next. Do we have any public comment tonight? No. Okay. Moving on to our superintendent communications with Dr. Patel. Good evening everyone. Thank you for being

004here tonight. If a few updates that I have. I want to start off with some really exciting news that we got to share. Dr. Murdoch left, but um yesterday we went to Glenidge Elementary School and we were able to surprise Jeannie McQueen with the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award. She is one of our amazing, fabulous teachers at Glenidge Elementary and um she's a fifth grade teacher. She actually started at Clayton at Mirramac as a reading specialist I believe in 200 And I want to make sure I get this right. 2014. And then from Marramac, she spent a few years there and then moved to Glenidge as a fourth and fifth grade teacher. Anyone who knows Jeanie knows her heart knows her love and compassion. And she is the epitome of being student centered. She not

005only loves her kids um tremendously, but she also pushes herself. That's what I admire her so much about her to grow professionally. Um, she's always taking on challenges and supportive supportive colleague. I could go on and on and on on and on about Genie, but she truly is so good. So, we were excited to like surprise her and her family was there as well, so they kind of snuck out um when we announced it. So, of course, she couldn't contain the emotions and I think we got a few good pictures there. Um, so congratulations to Jeie and we will officially honor her also at the Mayfair Awards every year. So, we'll recognize her there as well. Moving on, last week, I believe it was, we had our former board member breakfast at Glenidge. We hosted

006it there. We had a great turnout. It was a good opportunity to connect with former board members who've left a la lasting legacy in this district. It was exciting because they got to talk to one another. Some of them had not seen each other in years. And um not only did we have a chance to like continue to strengthen the connections but after breakfast Dr. Murdoch took them on a tour of the building and for so many of the former board members it was an eyeopening experience from what they had seen years ago when they were on the board to now and Dr. Dr. Murdoch kind of told the stories about the impact of what Glenidge has like on the students and the staff now and the facilities that are there and the struggling struggles

007they face with all of it. So I think a lot of them I would say the majority of them if not all of them left just wanting to be very supportive of whatever work we are doing with our facilities master planning process. Next continuing with board um involvement and engagement. This weekend we were at the Missou Missouri School Boards Association conference in Kansas City. So thank you to the board members who were there. We felt like it was a very great opportunity for us to connect but also we went to some really good sessions and one of the sessions actually was um from Clayton High School. They did a presentation at the conference and they talked about the innovative wellness center that we have the one of its kind in the Midwest and Jen Mchuan

008and the principal Dr. Gachuski were there and they presented to a room full filled. There was like I don't think there were any seats left. Um they were it was packed and they did a wonderful job showcasing the wellness center and at the end of the presentation we had a lot of individuals go up to them and ask to tour our facilities and I think some of them are coming from Kansas City um already scheduled like I believe in December. So, I thought that was a great opportunity for us to share what we're doing in Clayton with other school districts across the state. Point of pride for us on that. And then, oh, students. Oh my gosh. So, once you hit October, November, December, you will see our students shine on stage and behind the

009scenes. So, our plays have started. I've got to I went to see that and that was phenomenal. Um, and then we have the orchestra concerts. We have band concerts, choir concerts, you name it. All our students are out in the community and in the schools um performing. I hope you get a chance to go visit them and see some of them. I believe I think there was a concert last night as well. Yeah, band. So, if you get a moment, please take that chance and go see them perform. They are some of our our amazing students with so much talent there. So, I wanted to highlight them. And then our work continues to accelerate with of course our long range facilities master plan. So tonight there will be a presentation from the design team about

010that and we'll get to learn more about it in terms of what our next phases with the work. We have continued to do tours at um Marramac and Glenidge were the most recent ones. We had our community engagement forum which we got really good feedback on. Whoever was there, they all said that they appreciated the fact that it was less sit and get and more of being able to go into small groups and have conversations with areas of interest they have there. So that is ongoing and again we'll have an update later today or facilities work. Presentations we have three tonight so fasten your seat belts. Um the first one is from excellence K12. They're going to share our survey results and followed by our long range facilities plan update with our design team. And

011then the last presentation will be an assess a mini assessment report for with Dr. Garganigo and Miss Robin Hog are going to come here and talk about academic growth for a specific population of our students. Those are our three presentations. And now I'm going to hand it off to Nina for our student board update. So over the past couple of weeks, I've gotten the chance to meet with both WO down student council and a group of fifth graders from Marramac. One of the questions that I asked to both groups was, "What do you not like or not like about your school building and how do you think this could be improved?" Wown students said that they love how modern and efficient their building is, but they wish they had more opportunity to move between classes

012outside. For example, there's like an area between the sixth grade and 78 hallway, which is like an outside area that they say isn't used very often. And so they said that they would love to use that more if they got the chance. Um they also said that because the orchestra hallway is a center for many popular electives, it gets really really crowded and pre and prevents kids from getting to class on time. This is one I heard a lot. Um but I don't know how much of that is also just like middle schoolers love to talk and chat with their friends in the hallway. So I was a little bit torn on whether this was actually a problem or just a problem of people wanting to talk to their friends. Um, but that was really

013good feedback to get. And when I asked them how they felt about their field, because I know that's kind of something we're considering with the long range facilities master plan. Um, they said that they love how spacious and accessible it is, but they wish that they used turf instead of grass. Um, a lot of them said it would hurt less to fall. I don't know how much they're falling in PE, but apparently it would hurt less to fall on the turf and that it would recover more quickly from rain and snow, meaning they would get to go outside still in the winter months. Um, and then when I asked Marramax students about their school building, they initially struggled to identify any aspects that needed improvement. They told me a lot of things that they loved.

014Um, which I think is a pretty good sign. But when I pushed them a little bit harder, they told me that they wish their classrooms and specials rooms were a little more spread out. Um, right now Marramac has almost all of its classrooms on the top floor and then its specials rooms like PE, music, and art on the bottom floor. Um, they also they wish their school had more shortcuts because transitioning from room to room often cuts into like their time for certain activities. Um, but all in all, everyone had such helpful and well thoughtout feedback to share and I was so impressed and I look forward to meeting with both of those groups again. Um, and then for our next slide. Yes. Um, and then on Thursday, October 9th, I had another meeting with

015Clayton's u Clayton High School's principal advisory club. We continued our discussion about the long range facilities master plan by thinking through which areas of our school don't improve efficiency and learning environment. Some things I heard were if you're in the chemistry, language or CTE hallway, you have to walk pretty far to get to the nearest bathroom, which I definitely agree with. And then also the placement of the stairwell sometimes makes it difficult to find a quick and concise path to your next class. We also continued our discussion about Gayfield. In general, the group seemed pretty in support of the possibility of moving Gayfield to Shaw Park. The only potential issues that we saw arising were the rerouting of the homecoming parade and the decrease of green nature space outside in Shaw Park, which are both

016issues that I think can definitely be solved through like planning and careful thought um which I know we're doing. And then our last topic of discussion at Principal Advisory Club was the presence of hate in our community, which we opted to talk about um the meeting before we had decided we wanted to talk about this meeting. We talked about what can be done to combat inappropriate and hurtful jokes made in class, in the hallways, and even at sports practice. The group agreed that jokes, many of which have to do with anti-semitism, al often come from a lack of knowledge and understanding, though this is never justification. Many students say that they wish um they talked more about current events and politics in their classes as they feel this would be a good way for the

017student body to gain more information about what's actually going on in the world. We decided that although groups like the intercultural dialogue group, which is a new club at CHS, and the current events club do a great job of encouraging critical thinking and debate, they wish there was more outlets for discussion. and we're gonna talk more about that next time. All in all, it was a very wonderful meeting with the principal's advisory club and I look forward to meeting with this group again in the future. >> Thanks. Thank you, Nina. Um, and thanks for meeting with the middle school and elementary school kids, too. It's always great to hear their perspective as well. Um, okay, we're moving on to our agenda item six, our 6.1, our presentations. And we are going to start with excellence

018K12. Um, Excellence K12 um is the is the company that um did the survey both phone and online surveys for us regarding the facilities planning. So, we're looking forward to hearing those about those results. Thank you. >> Turn it on. Okay. Um I'm [clears throat] going to go through a uh executive summary of the uh telephone survey. uh kind of hit the highlights for you. Uh and then I will talk about some data mining that we did that I think will give us some clarity on what was going on with the uh telephone survey. Uh and then I'll talk about the online surveys. Uh if you have any questions, holler out. So I'll get started. As you know, in late September and early October, we did a telephone survey with 300 randomly selected uh head

019of household registered voters living in the school district. calls replaced the landlines and cell phones. Um completed interviews were divided into three geographic segments that the district uh gave us. Uh and when we do random digit dial combined with population pattern matching uh our margin of error is 5.6%. So you can kind of keep that in mind as you hear about the stuff. Uh our first section uh when we do these types of surveys uh is grading the district's performances on a number of areas. Uh this is this is your brand. This is what people think about your brand. Uh and as you can see there we had some um very high uh numbers. Uh overall grade 4.78, quality education 477. Um even down to class sizes 447. Um, these are the highest scores we've

020seen on this type of survey compared to similar districts in Missouri and the Midwest. Uh, terrific scores. We were blown away. Uh, really good. Um, the next area we ask about is strengths and improvements. Uh, strengths of the district provides a good education. Um, don't know. Uh, which I would like to not see in the second place. Uh I would like to see them be able to talk to other attributes, you know, of the district there. So that's an opportunity. Uh quality teachers and staff and strong community support areas for improvement. Uh managing the budget and spending is always the number one area of improvement in every school district that we've ever worked with. Uh they're doing fine is uh really good. Uh don't know, that's the only place in a survey you want to

021see don't know is areas for improvement. Uh so uh good scores all around and uh pe like I say uh people like you a lot. We then went to what we call statement exercises um and we made uh six statements and we asked people how how much they agreed with these statements. The uh the purpose of this to see if citizens are civic-minded. Um so we ask questions like is it important it is it import it is important uh to maintain our school buildings uh quality of the district provides a strong foundation for property values um and again you can see here when you combine strongly agree and somewhat agree overwhelming um numbers uh in terms of civic-minded uh and I didn't expect anything less than that um so we got through the statement exercises

022and then we go to uh support or opposition of the potential projects level of support for the potential projects. Um uh good news less than good news here. Uh construct academic labs dedicated to career and tech programs had more than 50% of respondents showing support. Um that was the only project that scored at 42% or above. Um top items in in the in the group of um what do we have here? 11 options I think. Um Gayfield scored highest at 42%. Um and then the numbers kind of drifted down uh from there. uh and we'll talk in a minute about reasons for that support and we'll talk about the online surveys which were vastly different. Um answering the questions related to the uh elementary schools um only 8% of people said they would be more

023likely to favor uh the bond issue. um trend people seem to be a little indecisive uh on their answers. Um trying to figure out does education matter uh and why um bond issues after hearing all 10 project ideas. 35% of participants said they would either strongly support or support a general bond issue if the election was took place today. That's your benefit of the doubt question. Without knowing what's on the bond issue, without knowing the cost, would you support it? Uh 35% again a number lower than you would want to see. Um when we got into uh typical tax levels, uh $500,000 home at $447, um your percent was 32. at um 223 per month. Uh your percent was 33 and support increased um somewhat when we ask about a zero rate increase. Uh although

024not as high as I would suspect. Um and again there's a I think there's a good reason for this. um communication from the district. Um very good uh number one newsletter and mailer. Uh it's the only district that I can think of where uh social media isn't number one. Shows that Gina's doing a great job with the news matter with the newsletter. Um kids in school website, those are all fairly typical summary. Why did we get the information that we got? Uh, I think there's um I think there's six things going on. Um, I think one there's a level of satisfaction that precludes the perceived need for new or need for additional improvements. When you have grades that high, it's not unusual for people to look at and say, "How you get any better than

025we are? We're already great." So, I think that's one thing. Uh, I think there is a general lack of knowledge about the reason that the potential projects are needed. Um, and I think that goes back to the perception of it's very good. I think people assume that the buildings and everything associated are fine. Um, [snorts] general disinterest in projects that would not directly affect them because of geography or not having children or grandchildren. We went through all of those and it's none of those. What it was was the people who answered it would not affect me are people who have lived in the district for 15 years or more but not their entire lives. And what I would deduce from that is those are people who moved to the district specifically for the school for

026the school district. Their kids are no longer in school. And so it's like it doesn't matter if I vote one way or another. Okay. So, uh that makes sense. it it didn't make sense to think that it was one particular area, geographic area or something. So, I was glad to see that it wasn't that. Um, a distaste for anything related to athletics. Maybe a too strong of a statement. Uh, but um that is typical. The farther you get away from the classroom, the harder harder it is to get support for something. Um, where we included the word athletics, we got lower scores than when we just talked about academics. um finally an uncertainty about the world that we live in now. Uh and we're seeing we've got four or five other surveys with other districts

027going on and we're seeing some of that same thing. Uh no matter what side of the aisle that you're on, um it's chaos uh on a on a daily basis. Um and I think people tend to get very conservative about changes uh when there's chaos. Um, so that's what we have there. Questions about the phone survey. >> Who would like to start? Any questions? >> Anyone? >> Jason. >> Go ahead. >> I guess that leaves me. Um, >> yeah. I'm sorry. >> It makes sense. the phone. >> I was just going to say >> and then to take questions at the end >> for of both. >> Yeah. >> Or do you want to ask >> Oh, you mean the online >> the online? >> This was just the phone survey, >> right? >> Do

028if we have questions specific to the phone survey, we can go over. It's just about the survey in general. We could wait. >> Maybe let's hear the online survey >> presentation and then we'll ask questions about the all the surveys together. Um just let me get you a little more information on the phone survey as an addendum. >> Uh when we talked about the 11 options um people who lived here less than two years, 2 to 5 years, more than or 5 to 10 years, we didn't see anything higher than a 10% uh of those people who said it doesn't matter to me. Um for the most part, they were in the 3 and 4%s. when we got to more than 15% it ranged from 17% to 36%. So it really stood out that this

029one demographic group um had that attitude. So I just wanted to share those numbers with you real quick. >> Wait, so just to clarify, yes, >> if you have lived in the district 15 years or more, you were you were you disproportionately answered that question of it doesn't I I don't care. It doesn't matter to me versus if you were in the district for two years any other amount of time. >> Any other amount of time? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> So long-term district residents have more indifference than others. >> Yes. 15 years plus, but not people who lived there their whole life. >> So I think there's a distinction to be made, you know, right there with that. Okay. Um, talking about the talking about the online surveys, and let me preface this by

030saying with opt-in surveys, with online surveys, what you tend to get are your raving fans and your cave dwellers. Uh, caves stands for CAV, citizens against virtually everything. [laughter] And there's a percentage of that in every market that is against anything related to taxes. uh whether it's the municipality or the school or the college board or whatever. Uh if you look keeping that in mind, uh I think what you got here is you got a lot more people who are raving fans uh than you did to tractors on the on the online surveys. That's a good thing. Okay. Um if you look at the grades compared to uh the telephone survey um in some ca and again the telephone surveys numbers were very high. Um and in most cases the um weighted scale for staff

031was at that level or above. Um teachers were a little bit I mean uh not teachers uh parents were a little bit lower than that. um community um was higher for the most part. Uh I'll give you an example. Preparation of students for college, vocational training or employment, 4.69 for the phone survey, 4.56 for parents, 4.78 for staff, 4.71 for the general community. Uh so your numbers in in most cases were higher with the community than they were even with your parents and teachers. Okay, which is pretty cool. Um hit a couple of numbers in particular for you. [snorts] If you look at the options um for Glen Ridge Elementary, for example, um 39% were more likely to vote in favor of a bond issue on the telephone. That number jumps to 52% for parents,

03251% for um staff, and 44% for a general community. So again, the numbers are higher. Um it would make no difference in my voting decision. This is interesting. 47% said that it would make no difference. But when you get to the other um demographics, only 13% of parents said that, only 18% of staff said that, and only 14% of the general community said that. So, we didn't have a lot of people who were 15 years plus in the district taking the online surveys, which doesn't surprise me because they already told us it makes no difference to them. Okay. So, that's what you get there. Um, an interesting one that, and I just picked out some that I thought were kind of glaringly obvious. Um, second option for Glen Ridge would be to build a brand

033new school. Um, you had 22% of people on the telephone say that they would more be more likely to vote against. In the community survey, and this is an the anomaly, 44% of people said they would be more likely to vote against. Um, so your your cave dwellers came out, but you also had some other people um who were saying that to get that high of a number. Um, I don't know what I don't know what the issue is with Glen Ridge, if there's a specific issue. It looked like a good option with the uh, you know, the same site and the storm shelter, but we got kind of some negative stuff there. Um, Marramac uh was was pretty even across the board for the first option. Um, more likely to vote in favor of

034the bond issue for the second option, the brand new school. Um, not as high on the phone survey and other than the staff survey, um, not really high on the community survey as well. And again, there's there's 11 different options that we went through with this. I'm not going to read them all to you and bore you to death. Um, another project idea was Clayton High School. Um, more likely to vote in favor of um, academic labs dedicated CTE programs. Uh, across the board, uh, people were more likely uh, in favor to vote for that than were negative. um more likely to vote against here was um generally speaking 10% which tells me that your percentage of cave dwellers was about 10%. It's usually 10 to 15% in most communities. Um I think in this

035poll you got about 10% and it looks like you got about 25 to 30% of people who are your raving fans. Um this was an interesting one. replace the current grass field at Widen Middle School with artificial turf. On the phone survey, you only got 3% of people say they were more likely uh to vote in favor of that. Parents were at 52%, staff at 60% and online survey at 50%. A dramatic difference in the opt-ins versus the title phone survey. U one more that was kind of a head scratcher was the options at Gay Field. uh renovate the existing campus. Uh you only had 1% of people vote or say that they would vote against that. Uh on the phone survey, you had 53% of people say it would make no difference. When you

036get to the percentages community online survey, that's only 13%. So again, the people who live here for 15 years or more and you don't have their interest anymore, for the most part, didn't take the online survey. That's what we can deduce from that. Um, same thing on build a multi-use field next to the Clayton High School campus. Uh, 47% on the phone said it would make no difference. Only 9% in the community said it would make no difference. Um, if the district proposed a bond issue that included the list of projects you just read about, how would you vote if the election were held today? again benefit of the doubt without knowing anything. Um support and strongly support on the phone was only 35%. Uh support and strongly support in the community survey was 61%.

037Um even higher among parents and staff. U 73% among parents and uh 82% among staff. Uh, so you know that your parents uh and your staff are on your side and it's important to know that because they're not always on your side. Um, I've actually seen it happen where a where a school was going to do a levy issue and staff was against it which meant raises for the staff that were against it. Um, talking about the uh tax tolerance 447 per year. Um, fairly low numbers on the phone survey. good numbers for parents, good numbers on the online survey and 53% uh on the community online survey uh compared to um 34% 32% uh on the telephone. So again, your numbers went up dramatically. >> 53% on the um online survey, >> yes, >>

038said they would support the highest. >> Is that Did I misar you? Okay. Yes, I know, right? >> Good numbers. Um, when you drop down to the mid mid level 223 per year, your numbers didn't change on the phone survey at all. Uh, the numbers got a little bit better among parents and uh staff. Um, and for um community online survey, uh, the numbers jump to 66% would support it at 223. um zero tax increase. And this is a little bit of a head scratcher um because on the phone we only had 39% of people said that they would approve of a zero tax increase bond issue. Uh when you get over to the online survey, that number is 84%. I'm at a loss to tell you why that is. that I I told Gina

039before we started today, I've been doing this 40 years and this is the strangest survey results I've ever seen. Uh I I have never seen numbers that are this high of um either don't know or doesn't make any difference to me. >> Well, [laughter] I would agree after seeing this. Yes, I know that was a lot of numbers to throw at you. I'm sorry there was a lot of data there to to chew through and I'd be happy to take any questions that you have. >> Thank you. And just so the public knows, we've received this data ahead of time, so we're not just we've had time to kind of digest this and formulate questions, too. Um, so who would like to start with some questions, Jason? >> Yeah. >> Um, thank you for all

040that. So, [laughter] uh, I I just a couple questions there. There are some numbers in here that I just would like to understand a little better. I I don't you may have said this and if I missed it, I apologize, but do you do you have the cross tabs on who makes up the 30% of undecided voters? >> Yes. >> Could you share it? [laughter] >> The 30% of undecided voters. More data. [snorts] Makes no difference. makes a difference for students by age. Um so and it's different for every question. >> Yeah, I'm with you. >> Um but generally speaking, um it is uh [snorts] you do the second option for for captain elementary school make no difference um by age uh 2% 11% 10% 12% 12%. Sorry, not the not the make no difference

041the so so like if the election if the vote were held today how would you vote? 30% were undecided. >> Yes. >> Who are those people? Ah um% a combination um include the list of projects that we just talked about. Um your 18 to 24 year olds were only 3%. Your six your 25 to 34 year olds were six were 12% 35 to 54 were 12% 45 to 54 were 10% interesting interestingly enough your 55 to 64s uh were uh 16% 65 or older 9%. So roughly equal I mean I mean I could say this in generalities and I guess it's right because it's so general but roughly equal distribution across age group. So there's nothing distinguishing there >> is are there any cross tabs and you don't that could be an answer that you

042come back with and I I would rather have that you know than you know but like I think it'd be >> we just need to have some clear understanding if at all possible about who makes up those 30%. You you see I'm >> Yeah, right. The only cross tab that made sense was people who have lived here 15 years or more. >> Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um the second thing is can you go back to one of the first slides? I apologize I don't have it right in front of me but the um uh one more. Nope. More. I'm okay. So I guess I read the first one. I'm willing to support school improvements, etc., etc. That's 78% of people either strongly agree or agree. >> Yes. >> Which is a good sign. Yes. >> Right.

043>> Yes. >> And so I square that up with the variety the as you correctly pointed out a bunch of people said like this option makes no difference in how I vote. That option makes no difference in how I vote. Like I it sound the statement sounds negative like it makes no difference as in I don't care about this. But isn't an alternative explanation that it's that I was going to vote for this whether you did something to captain or not. I live in Marramac so I'm only going to say more likely for Marramac but do whatever you want to do with Captain Glenidge etc. >> Excuse me. Yes. >> Okay. That is [clears throat] another explanation for it. >> Yeah. Um [cough] I think the election will come down to turnout. Um, I think

044some of those people if they Thank you. >> Sorry, it went down the wrong way. >> I think some of the people who said it doesn't matter as long as the tax tolerance is uh zero or reasonable, I think those people will vote yes. >> Yeah. >> Uh I think if the tax tolerance is not reasonable that they will vote no. I think on a zero tax that they probably won't vote. Um just out of apathy. >> Yeah. >> Um I think the zero tax and I don't know I don't know where you're at in needing that. I think zero passes easily. Um I think 223 passes with a good campaign. 447 is a little bit of a of a reach. >> Think Yeah. Okay. >> That's that's great. Thank you. >> Okay. Sure. >>

045Yeah. I I want to follow up on that. it would I was thinking when someone were to respond like it doesn't matter or um does that in any way reflect kind of like whether I vote for it or not like I'm not heard or is it like a trust issue at all do you think? I mean is that a factor at all? >> I do not think so because that would show up in your grading questions. Okay. >> And it and it didn't. I I really think it's I'm done with school, so I'm not going to think about this. And I don't know the age here where you no longer have to pay taxes. Is it 60? >> The senior tax free. >> Senior tax free. >> The senior thing. Is it 60? >> 60.

046>> 62, I think. >> Um I think we may have some of those people in there. >> Yeah. >> As well. Okay. >> Um I've seen that in other markets where you have >> quite a few older folks and they're like, I don't care. doesn't doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me either. I vote yes because it doesn't affect me uh in my home market. So, >> Gotcha. Thanks. Um so, are so on the phone survey, do you have similar breakdowns in terms of like uh which population you're speaking to? Like you have that data as well. I'm just curious like you mentioned that one particular 15-yearish uh kind of cohort, right? Residents. I'm just curious if in the phone survey do you have like I would be interested to see like on the report

047card do we have that broken down by? >> I do not have a report card broken down. No. >> Okay. Gotcha. >> And I I don't think there's anything else here that you would >> you would really look at and say, "Oh, yeah. There's something going on there." Um and again, we spent a lot of time data mining and a lot of time looking at the numbers trying to figure this out. Uh, and the la absolute last thing we did was amount of time living in the district. >> That was the last thing I thought it would be. So, it was the last thing we did. We're finally like, "Oh my gosh, THERE IT IS." >> THAT'S what it was. I got you. Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thanks. >> Now, you you have

048your digital dashboard that everybody has access to. >> That was helpful. >> And there's more data on that than I have that I have here. It's impossible >> to present that whole that whole thing. So you can go in and you may find some, you know, find some things that are interesting or of interest to you. >> Kim, >> yeah. So I I mean, can do you think that the differences between the phone survey and the online survey have to do with the fact that you're missing that moderate middle in the online survey because the majority of your respondents were your super fans or your, as you put it, cave citizens against virtually everything um folks. Does that explain in your opinion based on the number of surveys that you've done before the difference? >>

049That's exactly the difference. Yes. >> Okay. So, but otherwise you think in terms of the questions um the results are consistent. >> Yes. >> Between the two? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, then based on those results, what are your three top takeaways from the combination of those two surveys? Um, number one, I think you have a lot of raving fans that are going to support it. Uh, we had a lot of people take the sur I don't remember the number of people that took the online survey. It was a pretty good number of people. Uh, so I think you're going to have a lot of raving fans that support it. I think your cave dwellers are probably 10% or less. Uh, so, you know, that's kind of that's kind of one thought. Um, I think

050that the people who said no are the people who said it wouldn't matter need more information than they have. Um, we ask a general question about do we renovate this elementary school or do we tear it down and build a new one. There's no why there. And you you can't do that in the survey because you'll skew the results. Um but I think that you have people who are um need more information about that in order to make uh a decision. Uh so I think the the plan that we had talked about of educating people in the next couple months and doing another survey in January, I think that this bears that out. Um, and I guess the third thing that um that kind of strikes me uh a little bit about this is the

051just the the strength that you have with your parents and your staff. Uh really really good. Um and like I say, that's not always the case. Uh there are markets where parents are unhappy because you changed the boundaries on the high school 12 years ago and I'm still mad about it type of a thing. Um I I don't see any evidence that there was any problems in the past that that cropped up on this. Uh and they we would have seen that in the open-ended questions about u biggest strength and u areas of improvement and we didn't see any of that. So um that is a good thing. I think this comes down to turnout. I really do. If you get your teachers and your parents turning out and you get your other raving fans

052turning out, um I think you'll do well. >> And do you believe that there is enough time between now and the potential April listing to execute that sustained information campaign that you believe is necessary in order to turn enough undecided or indifferent voters to p to successfully pass I think I think we will know depending on what happens in the next two months. The idea is if we can move the needle some in the next two months. Um then that would that would give us an indication that in the three months that we have next year that we could move the needle even farther. Uh because whatever we do this year is going to be not as intense as what we can do next year. Uh so that's the that's the whole premise of reservey

053again just to see if we can move it move it a little farther again. Um and I I don't think we need to reservey online. I think we just need to do the telephone survey. >> And how much do you think that needle needs to move in 60 days? [sighs] >> Great question. Um I think if we could move that 15 to 20% Okay, >> keep in mind on some of the some of the scores you have that are 32% in favor, >> we need to see, you know, >> so you need to see above 50%. In order to be confident that you'd have the next 90 days after that to get to the point where you could pass it at >> 62 or two and a half, >> not necessarily. If you're at 32%

054and we move it 20%. That's 20% of 32 is six. So if we go from 32 to 40, I think that's a good indicator that we can take it from 40 to to 50 or better. >> Oh, I see a 20% improvement from the base. >> From the base. Yes. >> Okay. >> And I was told there would be no math. Don't don't hit me with that. [laughter] >> I'm the treasure, so I got to ask math questions. No, >> that's great. >> Thank you. Anything else? >> Pam, Chris, I just think I just have one question. >> So, you know, the questions are about the this different options. More likely to vote in favor if it's today, more likely to vote in favor, more likely to vote against or it makes no difference. That

055it makes no difference. We don't know if that is like >> no way or I don't care. I'm going to vote the way I'm going to vote yes. >> Yes. >> Or no. We have no idea what that is. >> We have no idea. >> Um, one of the things that I and I haven't talked to my team about this, but one of the things I thought about driving here was um, do we put a why >> after after that if you answered makes no difference, ask the question why. >> Why? >> I think that would be great information for us to have, >> right? Because they might say I'm voting yes regardless. that might be there or I'm voting no regardless. But it would be so helpful to know >> or I'm not gonna

056vote >> which way that Yeah. >> Whichever one it is, you know. >> Uh and the whole, you know, at the end of the day, the whole point of the survey is to inform your marketing campaign to pass a bond issue. Uh so I think having that information will be critical to what Gina's going to do >> um to come, you know, to address whatever people are thinking. What do you um which survey I I know the I think know the answer to this, but just so everyone hears, should we be paying more attention to the results of the phone because it's random and it's not just the cave dwellers and the super fans? >> The phone because it's statistically accurate. >> Your staff and parent surveys, I I didn't look to see what percentage

057of staff and parents that we got. you would need to get upwards of 66% of the people taking those online surveys for it to have any viable accuracy. Um, with the community survey, it's 50% margin of error. >> Yeah, >> it you know, it just that's that's the way that it works. >> And I love knowing that teachers are the staff is so supportive, but actually most of them do not are not registered voters in this district. So, that's something to consider as well. Um, in other districts, we've seen that the staff that doesn't live in the district doesn't take the online surveys um nearly as much. So, I think there's hope that the people that took the survey are people that actually live in the district. Again, >> I'm sure we have a number

058of how many staff took it though, right? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um, Chris, did you have any other questions? >> Asked the things that I was going to um say. I I was glad to hear what you said. I think what you alluded to what I the way I read it initially is for these folks that are saying I don't know or it makes no difference um education is what they need. Information is what they need, >> you know, [clears throat] and then in January if we do give them that information, >> that'll be very um that'll tell us, you know, a lot about what to do. And I think by asking why, we'll find out that I either need more information, I don't care and I'm not going to vote. We'll find out what

059that is and that will inform the campaign that that you end up doing. >> Yeah. And I just appreciated you um pointing out that our grades were so great, you know, compared to >> grades are amazing. >> I that makes us feel really good. We worked really hard to to make sure that we're feeling like that that our community feels like we're doing a great job. And I do think and I'm assum I'm I'm sort of asking but because I'm assuming myself that that does bode well for us in terms of once we get information out then potentially because we have folks that are very invested and have given us an A they're more potentially to say yes to that information. Okay. >> And keep in mind that the average patron hasn't stepped foot in

060a school building in 30 years. >> So they have no idea what you're facing with this. So, um, that's why the education campaign is is so important, so they know why you need to tear down the school, build, another one. >> Thank you. One one thing that jumped out at me that I wanted to point out from the phone survey was the question about the high school academic wing had a really high percentage of support, like over whatever your minimum threshold is. What when I compared that survey question to the questions about the elementarymentaries and the athletic fields, I realized that one was very specific. Like it listed what programs would be at the high school. It said robotics, geometry, and construction. And so what that tells me is um the community wants to know

061exactly what we're going to do. And maybe had the other questions been more specific, maybe we would have seen stronger results. I don't I don't know. But um but that was something to me that that point pointed out that I think the community just wants to know specifically what we're doing. Just saying a storm shelter for safety is important, but I think maybe >> I I struggle with schools is kind of like a vague term that maybe people don't know what that means. We always struggle with how much information do you give somebody on a survey >> knowing that Joe six-pack isn't going to have that information when he walks into the ballot box. So >> yes, I think that helped on that. I also think CTE helped that. >> And the high school touches

062everyone. Every kid in this district ends up with high school. So that's another thing too. But I think it did help just being very specific with exactly what >> that would be. And the others were a little more broad and vague. So that's something for us to follow. >> Up on your point, Stacy, the one just underneath that was about turf at W down >> and it seemed like turf would be good and it was almost 57% vote against it and like two >> Yeah, that one surprised me for it. >> So it is awesome. I mean it's your same point that if you're specific, you get a clear answer. >> Yeah. >> Turf didn't surprise me at all. >> I think just the athletics in general didn't Oh, it didn't. Every district we work

063with has trouble >> convincing people that turf is a good deal. Even when they show that you save money >> with turf ultimately people think that's a luxury >> and we've done some postmortems on that to know that people think it's a luxury. >> Yeah. Well, I think I guess maybe more than I was thinking about the academic questions, you know, the elementary schools. The athletics didn't >> Yeah. score well in general. But um okay, Nina, do you have any questions about the survey? >> I do have one question. So, I think the first set of statistics that you showed had like just like overall ratings and I noticed like the lowest one and was still pretty high was like uh communication or >> do you have any Yeah. >> So, the district's efforts to

064involve the community in decision-making. Um, do you have any like because I think there was another question that was like how people like what they feel is most helpful for getting their information from. Do you have any like data to show like the percent of people who are voting maybe lower on feeling like they weren't involved in community decision-m and how they were and what they were saying their biggest like place they were getting information from was. >> Yeah. I do not we don't do demographics on grading questions. Um it's kind of a whole different set of algorithms that that isn't in the the dashboard that we offer. Um I will tell you that district efforts to involve community in decision-m is low at every district we go for. 392 is a great score on

065that. I mean we see people in the low threes, high twos with that. Um, and keep in mind that that could be anything from um, my daughter didn't get inquire to, you know, uh, to anything else. What was the decision-making process of the district that my kid didn't get inquired? It could be something like that. >> Um, but it's low everywhere and that's a really good number. >> Okay, that's good to know. Thank you. [clears throat] That's a great great question, Nina, because I think um as we move forward, we need to figure out um first of all, why like he you said the social media is low, you know, was low, not our top >> just yeah, not >> you know or whatever. Figure out our means of communication and how we're going to

066reach people the best and make them feel like they're involved in our decisions. So, thank you. >> Yeah. And part part of ourformational campaign needs to be social media, Facebook in particular. Yeah, >> I would just say too that the timing of our inside Clayton came out just a few weeks prior to the survey hitting. So that might have been really top of mind for the individuals who were called to participate >> and that's a really good point and we got such great feedback on that >> on that mail. >> Yeah, that really >> that's the hard copy that went to every household in the district. >> That really nice like magazine. Yeah. >> So you're right. >> Okay. Well, if there's no other questions, um, thank you very much. >> Thank you. appreciate it

067and thanks for sending us the data dashboard too because aggregating it was really helpful as well. >> And if you have any questions about that, please reach out. Um, everybody's got my email, I think, and you know, please reach out on that. Uh, I know it's a lot to dig through. So, um, if you if you come across something else that doesn't look quite right, let us know. >> No, thank you. [clears throat] It's very helpful as we move forward to know what we need to do, who we need to target, and how. >> I look forward to reserveying in in January. It'll be terribly interesting. Yeah, terribly. [laughter] Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we're moving on to 6.2, which is a long range facilities plan update. And we have the team from

068Paragon here and Perkins and Will. Um, we've got everyone here, BLDD. Good evening. It's great to be back. Um, so this is on the heels of our community engagement uh last week uh which we had really good turnout. It was a lot of fun. I think we had uh to echo Dr. Patel's uh sentiments earlier, I think we had really great engagement from the community as well as the uh district staff and the uh design team. So, I think it really helped us propel forward and and be able to provide some additional feedback tonight as well as we move forward. So, this is just a snapshot of where we're going and and where we're at. So, we always like to think with the end in mind. Uh, in order to be successful, April 7th, we

069need the ballot issu language passed in January, which really means that our design teams will be working hard over the next 45 60 days to be able to provide you with more clarity on the direction of the designs for the December and January board meetings. kind of picking up on the comments tonight about the survey. It's really important for us to have more defined design documents, presentation modes so that you can share that information before that survey goes out in January. So, just know that our design teams are aware of that. We're working towards that. We're going to talk a little bit about what that process looks like as well as just some updates on each one of the designs uh tonight. So the first part is in order to do that we have to

070enter what's called the schematic design phase and you can kind of see some uh the bullet points there. So when we talk about the elementary schools and the athletics, this is the main push for our design teams over the next 60 to 90 days to because what this does is provide more definitive information for the board, for administration, and for us to also be working with the construction manager to really start to work through what those costs will be. And so when we get to looking at that December board timeline and especially in time for the January survey, we'll have more definitive information because we are now in that schematic design uh phase. Right now our recommendation would be and just a you know question for for you guys moving forward is right now we

071are planning on pausing at the end of schematic design which for us would be sometime in that January time frame and then once the ballot passes we would pick up on the um design after that point for the elementary school and for the athletics. when we look at the high school uh projects that might look a little different and the reason is is that very similarly to the elementary schools we're in that schematic design phase now if we continue to move forward into design development and construction documents before the ballot in April that allows construction activities to take place this summer in summer of 26 so that the high school projects would be ready by August of 27. If we were to take a similar pause on the high school projects like we do on

072the elementary, that would push it back. Instead of opening August of 27, it may be January of 28 or August of 28. So, just a consideration for the board as you think through the timelines. It's not impacting us for the next 30 to 45 days. We're still working through the schematic design, but it's a decision for the board to give us permission to move forward or not past that. And again, there's some cost implications to that, but also just that benefit of opening up the high school projects a semester or an entire year earlier just because we're able to push forward and design this spring. Okay, I'm going to run you through the elementary schools. Before I do that, I think it's I think it's worthwhile to just always keep present and remind ourselves the

073work that's come in advance of where we are today. And I'm going to take that real all the way back to the beginning of the master plan phase that Paragon led when needs were assessed, buildings were assessed, conditions of buildings were assessed to really understand what you've got uh in termswide. And so I think those are important benchmarks to keep reminding ourselves and the community in fact of of the work that has come so far uh to the extent possible. the elementary schools um uh captain is contemplates a uh this existing we just have two slides for each elementary school and the existing site plan and the proposed we're just going to sort of quickly jump to the proposed captain contemplates a new building a replacement building and again the the why for that goes

074back to all the findings that were uh that came out of the master plan. Uh one of the things that we did starting uh earlier this summer after we came on board was a series of workshops where we worked through all of the issues a lot of the sort of where the where the district sees elementary school education going into the future the types of spaces that are needed to support the type of work that's that's being contemplated that really wants to happen. It happens today but in spaces that are perhaps not ideal for that. So has a lot to do with things like classroom size. has a lot to do with things like the flexibility of space, having places for students to break out or work in small groups uh and to collaborate and

075to build those kind of skill sets that all of our clients are looking for their their students to to walk out of their K- through2 education with. So, and it starts in elementary school and so dialing those kind right sizing spaces bringing uh those types of um different programmatic elements to uh each of the schools is one of the things that's driving the size of the buildings. What you're seeing in the footprint here is again it's a replacement of the existing building. Um the the you'll see on all the proposed site plans the red dotted line is something that goes away. So in this case, it's the entire Captain Elementary School. The footprint that's there is in in the east west direction is roughly the same as the existing building. It's a little bit more

076compact. That left side, the phase one is a three-story academic portion of the building. It's principally academics. The right side of that, the phase two is uh cafeteria, gym, and some and some support spaces for that. So, it's a it all happens on the ground floor, but it's a two-story volume because those spaces are taller. The uh the play the play areas really just flipped to the to the uh the east side of the site. So, this actually puts the building where the original Denoon Elementary School was on the west side of the site. And um it allows that phase one if this building stays occupied during construction. That's why it's shown in two phases. If this building perhaps like Glenn Ridge or Marramac takes advantage of of a swing space that's the district is

077working on what that might look like then it would not be two phases. It would just all happen together in one phase. Glen Ridge Elementary uh existing site plan. We'll just jump to the proposed. This bears a lot in uh similarity to Mirramac in that um the existing what you know of as sort of the front uh the sort of classic front of these schools remains unchanged. So that experience that the community has had with these buildings now for almost 100 years is what it will be in the future. the additions the the the demolition you'll see there and again in the dotted line this case happens on the north side of Glen Ridge which is its traditional I guess rear of the school. Although one of the points we've made about this campus in

078particular is it's surrounded by um streets and folks front yards and their living room windows looking at this building. We don't see any side of this building as the back necessarily. Um, but the front, the traditional front of the school is on Wellington and we're proposing via the work here, and this is true at Marramac as well, to reestablish that front door where the traditional front door was uh originally for these buildings and handling at the same time ADA accessibility to to the fronts of these buildings, which is why those the you know, sort of the main entry, I'll call it I won't call it the front door. main entry currently is not at the traditional front of the building. So the the additions again are helping to rightsize. They are doing things like making

079the gym an appropriate size. Coupling with this, this is true at captain as well. Coupling with it a cafeteria space so they work together. The cafeteria in fact becomes a stage to the gym. So it doubles uh as a performance space to the gym. So those things are all common. Programmatically, the schools are are basically the same. The only one difference is at Mirramac, there is an additional classroom that we're calling a flex classroom, and that just has to do with this the population at Marramac to handle bubbles that uh bubble that's running through the the school. The playgrounds and the and the uh the turf field at Glen Ridge remain intact where it is. Um and the again the building addition sets to the north. Marramac, very similar. You have to sort of reverse

080this in your mind now that the traditional uh main entry to the school is now to the top of the page. Excuse me. North is to the right uh towards downtown Clayton. And then the uh a bit of a removal of the building uh um on what is actually more of a backside here because you don't have front yards facing it um to the east. still still what the uh all of these additions uh to Mirramac and Glenn Ridge, we see those architecturally as being very very respectful to the architecture of those original buildings. So primarily brick u uh brick buildings with uh articulated in a way with you know there's a fair amount of detail and interest to those existing buildings that we feel like might be important in these additions. So coupling those

081additions with the new buildings is going to be very important like Glen Ridge. The addition is the big part of that addition back there is a new gymnasium and a new cafeteria combined with it. Playground and and and I should have mentioned the turf field uh is common is a common turf field is a common element at all three elementary schools. It's just again for playability. Um, it's that same conversation you were just having about wind down. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Brad for the high school. >> Yes. So, we're just a little bit further along in the high school um in the in the development. Not much has changed over the last couple of weeks. So, essentially, we're looking over on the west side. Um, you can see the baseball

082field kind of out to the left uh there. Um you'll also see on the lefth hand side a couple of other uh little violet colored uh spaces. So one option is uh moving the school store up to where the current hounds grounds is. So better access for students, visitors, parents, guests. Um and then also be able to get hounds grounds down there on the lower level of the commons closer to the cafeteria. As we talk about the CTE expansion there on the west side, one of the drivers there is to maintain our west access, our driveways, as well as the access back into I'll say the more mechanical and maintenance uh yard uh of the high school. What you see there in purple is the geometry and construction. The green is the robotics field. And

083then those light blue are the classrooms for math. Um a a dedicated CTE classroom and the AMP uh program. We still have to work through some details to still try to work through how we can connect to the existing building, work with the existing math office, still get some daylight uh into that math office as well, but we're we're a little bit closer there. You can also see there's that red dashed line again of the small portion of the existing high school that we would demolish in order to get those spaces in there. Currently, we have the geometry and construction um identified as the tornado safe room space. Uh, and so as we work through that, uh, again, kind of what Steve mentioned, being very respectful to the quality of architecture that is on that

084side of the building as well, from the large expansion that was made with the, uh, science wing uh, to its north. Right now, we're just looking at this as a onestory addition. Uh, we'll be working with BSI to see if there's advantages and what the costs would be to design it in a way that could be a second or third floor added in the future. Um because once we put this footprint here, there's really no other spot on the high school campus where you can easily add classrooms. And so we just want to be cognizant of that and and make that decision early on and we'll have some opportunities for that decision. But um >> the robotics field is like a story and a half though, right? >> I'm sorry. >> Isn't the robotics field

085like a story and a half? >> Yes, thank you. The classrooms are one. >> Yeah. So the classroom story is just one single level. If we have the ability to build above it for the second or third floor, it would be stacked on top of those blue areas on the south. We would not put anything or plan to put anything above the robotics or the geometry and construction because those will be a story and a half. And the diagram up there at the top is just trying to show what we're going to have to do with the shape of that building in order to be keep those windows and the science labs intact. So, there's some some design details that still need to be worked out there, but we're cognizant of keeping the daylight and

086into those science lab classrooms on that second and third floor. And then we just don't uh the other side of campus, we don't have the visuals of it. And this may be funded through um many different ways, but it could be uh capital projects that could occur in a summer or these projects could be tied in with the CTE project, you know, next summer, for example. But um there's limited mobility to get to the backstage area for uh for ADA purposes. Uh it's there, it's accessible, it's it's by code, but there's better ways to do it. So we we're looking into that. Looking at um within the auditorium, some opportunities for some seating replacement, taking the auditorium lobby restrooms and giving them a refresh. Uh not not an overhaul, but just a refresh. Um, and

087then then back of house, back by the band, choir, and orchestra rooms, uh, there's some HVAC improvements that are pretty typical that what we see after something's been around for 20 years. Um, but there's some improvements back to that area that would make a big difference for the, uh, faculty, students, and staff. >> Thank you. Okay. So, as your priorities come into more focus, uh, our our focus has evolved a little bit, right? So, now we're looking at gay field modernization. I want to be clear that that still includes the work at W down, which is replacement of that field in some multi-purpose playing surface. It also includes uh a softball infield at one of the Shaw Park fields. It includes work at Adzik, which would be improvements to the dugouts and a new press

088box. The work at Gay Field is taking advantage of some of your assets already on site. So, we aren't going to redo the track. That track is fairly been it's been resurfaced recently. It's in good shape. Uh you have a brand new scoreboard that stays in place. And so, we would look at replacing the turf. Um but really and also focus on the athletics building, renovation of that, renovation of the concessions and toilet building and really focusing on that homeside uh bleacher press box area. Create a pedestrian way. Um you know these spaces need to be inviting. They need to be inspiring. They need to be motivating. But most importantly, they need to place where the community can come and celebrate. Hopefully celebrate mostly. Um so that's where we will be focusing our efforts. Obviously,

089we understand that there are issues with parking, so we'll have to work through that. Um, we just today did a really sort of more um, you know, specific look at W down and um, Gayfield to sort of look at all of the ins and outs of what makes the most sense. Um, and we're going to focus really on that upper level, trying to figure out what's the best way to make that safe and welcoming and also allow ADA parking and ambulance access and those sort of things. So, we're focusing on that modernization of Gay Field um and plan to meet your goals in terms of the uh schedule. >> Thank you so much for the update. Um any questions for anyone? Pam, go ahead. >> Hi. Um let me just kind of go through my

090list here. Um okay, elementary schools at 1 somewhat recently there was talk of keeping the original fronts as the fronts but building out part of them. What happened to that? >> The the school you're referencing is was Glenidge. Okay. Mirramac we never were looking at addition to the front. It was just Glenidge. >> What we've done is found a an alternate way to do that and it primarily was being driven by the size of the library. We found another way to to handle that at Glenidge that allowed the the addition just to be to be one consolidated addition on the back of the school, right? Instead of doing it on the front as well. When we were talking about the front, we were talking about it being very much in keeping with the architecture that

091of the existing front of the building. But I mean the simple answer to your question is we found another way to get that library to happen without the need for the front. So the addition in the back got incrementally larger. The advantage of it having it's there is an advantage of having it in just there's really two advantages of having it just in one spot. One advantage is the front of the building remains unchanged. Right? So from a community asset standpoint, from a from a community experience standpoint, I think there's a message there that the beloved cherished cherished building is it's going to look just the way it always looks. So I think that's one thing. The other thing though from a constructibility and a cost standpoint, consolidating additions in one spot is more cost-effective

092than putting them putting a number of additions in a number of different spots. >> Cost effective. I like that. >> Um, okay. Next one is about the high school. A few questions. Um, you talked about the theater. Well, I'll actually stick with the theater. At one point I heard also that we're going to make the lobby larger, not just the restrooms. Is that still when you talk about lobby? >> No. Yes, we talked about that earlier. Right now we're focusing just on the restrooms. Um we think the costbenefit uh ratio there of expanding the lobby really wasn't worth it. Um so we've we've put that part to rest for now. >> Okay. Um, another thing we've heard about is that the science and language wing at the high school that [clears throat] there's not Nina

093actually spoke about it. There aren't bathrooms there in that whole addition. And we talked sometime about how the reason there wasn't when they did that addition, they didn't put bathrooms there for financial reasons, it seems. >> And so, is there a need to think about that? >> Yeah, there's two restrooms right there just south of the geometry and construction. The two gray boxes are our restrooms. Yep. >> Thank you. Wonderful. That's great. >> So, we're Yeah, we we recognize that was a pain point in that area of the building. >> And those are multistall. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Um Okay. Then the next one is the little theater, blackbox theater. Any talk of weaving that in with the other? >> Currently, we do not have any work shown in that area. Okay. I

094I I I would like to push us to think about the the I don't know the need for that and then the cost associated >> risk benefit discussion of that one. Um, and then with your work over there in the main lobby, um, the wellness center, is there a way I know that we just put all this money into the wellness center where it is, but what we do know about wellness centers is that they are most effective when they are near the colleagues that they work with, such as um, counseling and nursing. and if we're already gonna be doing some work up there, I don't know if there's any way to rework that area. I just wanted to put that back on the docket. >> So, back to the master plan, one of the

095things that we showed was if we expanded and grouped some of those forward- facing student services all in that one wing of the high school near the front lobby area. That would have to relocate all of those social studies rooms. So, there'd be anywhere from two to four, I think. social studies rooms that would have to be relocated. In order to fit those rooms anywhere else that we saw right now, it would require a second or a third floor expansion into that area in order to make that switch. So that was the other reason from our perspective tying it back to the master plan is if we make that a one-story addition with the math, the CT and the AMP that can be built on to the future whether it's that need or any other

096needs that might come up in the next 10 or 15 years for the for the high school that would be the opportunity to build above that space. And because we're it's challenging to build above an occupied space, but because we know that going into that's a possibility, we can make the right design decisions now to make it easier to do that later versus more difficult later. >> Any other questions? Ben, go ahead. >> [clears throat] >> Um, so on Glen Ridge, uh, you know, there is an addition that's about 20 years old with the cafeteria and I think upstairs it's got like science classroom. Does that remain untouched >> in your recollection? >> Yeah, let me get to let me go back to that [snorts] >> all the way on the east side. >> Yeah,

097it is. >> Yeah, I think it's that 20 years. >> Okay, so that >> currently down below. >> Gotcha. So that space remains there although the cafeteria gets reconstituted up above. >> Right. So that I guess what any any vision on what that cafeteria space would be repurposed. >> We uh at Glenidge we don't have any uh classrooms in the lower level right now. Okay. >> By by request, right? >> We do have administrative spaces down there. How however including the main office which would it's not in that location. It's kind of in the middle of the building where the front door would want to be. Uh but there's two options for that existing space uh where the cafeteria is now. One is more administrative type offices. Another is sort of more back house kind

098of functions for the school in general. >> Okay. >> So we are cognizant that those are nicer spaces and so I I probably lean toward them becoming more administrative type spaces and finding other homes for back house spaces. >> Okay. Um switching to Marramac. Um what can you describe what the u percentage change in the hard surface play space is? >> No, it's it's some >> it's not a quantity. It's not a it's not a number that I have off the top of my head. >> Okay. >> One of the changes that we uh I did not talk about but I can now given your question is there's a drop off that happens up here off of this turnaround. And so what this is showing is a notion of essentially building a retaining wall to

099allow more of a a flat play surface. So we're definitely aware that, you know, we're taking up some existing playground space with the new addition. So we're trying to sort of reconstitute that back here. What exact form or shape or surface it necessarily takes is that's work yet to be done. But the notion is again the retaining wall to allow more horizontal flat surface instead of having it sort of >> so you're going to kind of push back into that >> hillside. Exactly. You push back into that hillside a little bit more equal to what it is today. That's right. Without doing that it's definitely less. >> It's definitely less. Okay. Gotcha. >> And who owns that property? >> Is that school district property that push back or is that city? >> Okay. Thanks. to

100follow up on that. Um the when we did the workshop this summer with Marramck, they the the faculty had the exact same concern. >> It's a priority for them. >> Very much a priority for them to make sure they have as much space there. >> Yeah, I've heard the same. Yeah. >> Um uh now on the high school, um so the addition um I'm just trying to understand is that um you mentioned that things could get pushed back based on you know getting construction documents ready. Is that is that work going to happen during the school year and if you know the demolition and the construction itself and what kind of impacts will that have on the school? >> The benefit of um having construction documents ready for bidding and permitting. Um we might be

101able to do some of the demolition work during the summer maybe. Um, but in either scenario, there's going to be construction activities taking place throughout the throughout the entire year, school year. >> Okay. >> Some of the we might be able to get some of the dirtiest, noisiest stuff done in like last part of July, early part of August. Part of that's how we can get permits uh handled quickly. >> Um, but there's a higher likelihood of being able to do that if we're able to have documents ready to go out for bidding and permitting right after the ballot passes versus >> right next >> three to four months later. So, kind of on a related question in a way, um, you know, if I guess at some point we're going to have to figure

102out exactly what we're going to be asking to do. Um, so, uh, based on what has been presented, I feel like there's a chance that not all that's going to get done or going to get asked for in terms of the, you know, u, so I guess in the question then is, do we need to go forward with schematics on something that we're not actually going to pull the trigger on if if you don't see what I'm saying? >> So, the Yeah. So the that was in our conversations internally within the design team and with the district. That's why we felt comfortable taking it to the end of schematic design on um on most of the projects because what that allows us to do um it allows us to get more definitive information to make

103better decisions and be able to communicate better with the community to show them what they're getting so to speak. and also allows the construction manager to get better pricing on that to be able to make that decision better. >> Until we get to the end, true the end of schematic design, it's a little bit more based on I'll just say square foot numbers and what's been typically built elsewhere in the community. At the end of schematic design, we have some pretty good hard numbers to do actual takeoffs, actually be able to talk with subcontractors and suppliers to get better numbers to make better decisions. >> That's on the elementary schools. That's why we recommended stopping right there because when we actually looked at the analysis by pushing forward, let's just say on Glenidge further along,

104it really didn't buy us any advantage in timewise for the district, especially with a move in date. Getting done with a brand new large ele uh elementary edition in October doesn't really benefit the district as much as getting it done in July or December, for example. M >> so by stopping the elementary schools where we've proposed keeps the district in a really good spot for construction and move in. The only the only one that showed a clear benefit was the high school to be able to essentially possibly move in as much as an as an entire year early. Now I guess the reason I ask also is that you know if we kind of know at a macro level where things are going to fall even by you know kind of ROM estimates or whatever.

105Um then it might I guess will there be an opportunity to say okay we kind of know what we can get done for x amount of dollars. So maybe we would hold off on schematics on on some of the projects or one or I don't know what whatever it may shake out to be. uh just because I I feel like if we're not going to utilize that anytime soon, right, the schematic effort uh that it I mean I well let me ask you this. Can it can it would that be usable in three five years out or whatever it may be? >> It's actually one of the things we didn't talk about very clearly was um Glenidge and Marramac were actually proposing to go through the schematic design phase. Captain were actually pulling back to

106like 35% schematic design. >> Okay. >> Um because of that exact reason. >> Okay. it'll be able to be able and the same reasons I said of like the benefits of it. We think we can be able to be successful and everything I talked about and get to technically it's 50% but it's 35% architecturally. >> Got >> and so that's the good where we thought the good break point to be able to get the best value and the lowest risk for the district. >> Perfect. That's awesome. Great. Um and then on the Gayfield uh renovations proposed um one of the things that um was brought up at the community meeting is that the need for storm shelter there. Um and I see that renovation of the existing building is part of that scope of that

107work. Would that serve as a sufficient storm shelter for I mean would be better than someone being in a car right for but um I guess is that part of the goal with that renovation? So yes, um the athletic facility if we are able to take over the entire lower level that adds space that would be allowable to use in the case of an emergency. I don't want to let any you know have anybody assume that this is a tornado shelter in terms of so we will have the existing facilities at the concession and toilet the athletic facility new press box ticket booth those will all be small. So those are all places you can go in case of an emergency. Um, we're not building anything any new structures that would add to that capacity,

108but you'd be surprised how many you can actually get into a locker room >> when you have to. >> Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. Um, sorry, I got a lot of questions. Um, what uh regarding wind down uh field is there I I feel like we talked about this. Is there a shade structure plan for that? >> It is one of the planning elements. Um, when I talked about your priorities coming to more focus, what that means is dollars that are available. So, that's one of the things that I'm going to be pushing on to make sure I understand what those needs are so that we um provide you what you need and try to make sure we get into budget. I will be the first to admit, I don't know about the rest of the

109team, that the dollars that have been allocated to our projects, we have work to do to reduce scope. >> Okay? >> So, we have to get the dollars down. And so I'll be asking very difficult questions to our user groups to make sure. Yes. >> Yeah. Great. Yes. >> Gotcha. Fair enough. >> Uh then last question is part of the um you know obviously we're we're eager to have visuals and things that we can show that people can really kind of connect with. And uh will one of the things that's made available are you going to utilize any kind of digital uh virtual tools? Are we going to get flythroughs or any of the cool kind of new new things they have in design? like um because I think like having people at least have

110some kind of you know this is what the exper the new the new Glenidge experience uh for example would would be like and it would be helpful to have some of those tools. I'm not sure if that's part of the scope or um or it doesn't have to be like uh you know choose your own adventure. It could be a [laughter] pre preset fly through if you will you know. Yeah, >> we it's a great question. It's something that we've talked about. The uh the the buildings are Glenidge and and Marry Mack in in particular are already the existing buildings are already built in a 3D modeling program that we call Revit. Um the additions, anything that we change to will be doing the same thing. So we've talked about it's a it'll be uh

111frankly a little bit easier for us to do the sort of imagery from the outside perspective. The potential difficulty of going flying through the inside of the building is to make it look realistic. You actually have to know all you have to have all your material choices. Everything actually has to be >> modeled inside the in in the model, right? For it to actually look good. So, probably more likely to be let's pick a couple of spaces, you know, that we want to grab like a still image of for, you know, and and show that instead of flying inside the building. I'd say that's more likely what would >> would be an outcome. Getting the inside is more likely to happen at the end of design development because in the design development, we're finalizing all

112those interior finishes, colors, materials, >> that type of thing. >> Gotcha. Okay. Is that helpful? Thank you. Thanks. >> Any other questions from anyone? Kim, >> I just have one just so that um everybody can hear it again for probably the eenth time, but in how many of these uh projects that you guys are scoping out, how many of them require um swing space? Not the high school, not W down, not Captain, but all of the the other two elementary schools. >> Yes. Yeah. In order to successfully complete Glenidge and Marramac, people have to move out. >> There is no way to do Glenidge and Marramac with students in the building. >> I would highly discourage it. Um, is it technically feasible? Yes. It would probably take two plus years to do and the cost

113would probably be 50% more because of how long it would have to take and there'd be a lot of disruptions. >> Yeah, I just needed people to hear that answer. I can I can share with you. We did the we were the architects the design architects for Spy Elementary School over in Leoo. If you're if you're familiar with what happened over there that we ended up basically keeping the gym, everything else got replaced. Um most most of the construction happen. Thank you very much for the update. Look forward to more. Thank you for for being here. Okay, our last presentation tonight is a presentation, a mini presentation on assessment just on um a portion of our student population. We will of course hear more on assessments in the springtime, too. >> Hey Luke, can you

114check on the mics up here? Not sure if >> mine, but those >> Yeah, for me and those two. I don't know if they're still Can you hear me? >> I don't know. Does it work? Hi. Um, thank you for having us. Um, like you said, this is not our full-blown assessment report, but a smaller version of it where we're going to laser in on um some specific things um related to assessment and related to a specific population uh of students. So, before we started, we wanted to get ourselves grounded in our CEUP. Alo in our comprehensive school improvement plan which we refer to as our strategic plan. And in goal two um we focus on the educational growth of our learners. And so that's the focus of our work tonight is to talk about

115growth um on our local uh assessments. So, as a part of our work within the district, a year and a half ago, we started to reboot our multi-tered system of support process across the district and really trying to align language across all of our buildings um and really focus on our tagline of our MTSS process, which is knowing our learners well and responding to their needs. So, our goal as educators is to know all of our learners and how they're achieving and then being able to respond to their needs. Tonight, we're going to focus in on really two areas of this. So, our strong collaborative teams and our continuum of tiered support. So, tonight's presentation is different from our annual assessment report that we will do in February. The presentation is going to amplify our

116MTSS work as well as the superintendent's goals. Um, so it's going to be some highle information. We're going to talk a little bit about what the MTSS process looks like for us, but just to get you reggrounded in the superintendent goals. In 23 and 24 there was a focus on reading specifically on reading improvement plans and reducing the number of reading improvement plans across the district. Um the state made some changes for us uh in 24 and 25. We saw that as an opportunity. Um and we were um we sort of lost some longitudinal data because we had to change our assessment practices. So we moved from fast um to the star as our reading assessment to be aligned with the requirements from the state. And at that time we also added edge climber as

117a data visualization tool for us and a way for us to track information across the system. Um and so rebooting everybody in thinking about how we look at data as well as how we track that information um across the district. And then this year we continue with the reading focus but then also layered on um the math piece. So tonight we're going to show you some baseline data from both the NWA MAP, which is our local standardized assessment that we focus on for math and the STAR reading assessment. Um both are standardized assessments meant to report student achievement as well as student growth in those two content areas. So unlike the annual assessment report in February, for the purpose of our focus on MTSS, we're going to talk about students scoring at or below the

11850th percentile on the NWA. So those are the red and the orange um that are circled here. Um and then we're going to talk to you specifically about data from fall to spring of the school year 2425. Um the purpose in that is to remove summer um from the conversation. So we like to look at growth fall to spring um because we're responsible for children that entire time. Um and so we we feel like it gives a more accurate read um of growth. And then with NWA, we will only be focused on elementary because in the spring we had a tornado which prevented us from assessing um the middle school students um because of what our plan of education was for them after the tornado. Um the testing companies or the state depending on the

119assessment determine the the cut scores for us to use. And it's important to note that while there's um a percentile determined for us to consider to be at grade level, uh we remember that this is one data point on one day. Um so in addition, a percentile just to recalibrate everybody on a percentile is not a percent correct. Um it means that in a testing session, a student, if a student were to score in the 50th percentile, it would mean that their score was as good as or better than 50% of the norm group. Um, so it reports a relative comparison. Another thing to consider with NWA, um, the company reports scores within a range, generally a plus or minus 10. Um, that becomes kind of difficult for us to report to you. Um, so

120cleaner data for us to report to you is actually a single score. Um, so that messiness is what we deal with in the schools when we're talking about student data, but it's difficult for us to present to you in a clean way. So we just make a decision to go with just one score. For star, we'll talk to you about data from below the 46th percentile. So this is red and yellow um that's highlighted here. The state sets this threshold for us. Um so unlike NWA, which is set by the company, the state is setting that threshold based off of um the Senate bill. With each of these assessments, um Robin's going to share data with you about growth between fall and spring, as well as students meeting projected growth as determined by the testing

121companies. Um so she'll go into more detail about what that is. For growth, it's important to know that as a student ages up in the system, growth norms on assessments are smaller as students get older. So we anticipate that they will make larger growth at earlier ages. Um so for example, in first grade on the NWA, the norm growth is around 16 points. Um, but by seventh grade it's six points. Um, so that's a pretty significant uh difference. So Robin's going to walk you through uh the data. >> Hi, good evening. Thanks for having us. Um, so you'll notice that I'm going to start going into some tables, but our grain size is going to just continually get smaller so that by the time we get to the end, we are down to one individual

122child. And that's intentional, right? Because that's the goal, to know our students well and to respond to their needs. So you'll kind of see us take you through that throughout this presentation. So this first table looks like a lot of numbers here. So I'm just going to take you through kind of what the blues and the reds mean and what the different numbers mean. So the first table is showing us potential areas of disproportionality in our data. And as Molina just discussed, we're spending this presentation narrowed in on 2425 school year and data for about 15% of our population is what we're looking at. So the first table is how that 15% actually breaks down. And this is breaking down by student group. So in the table you can see that we're discussing 34 African-American

123students, nine Asian students, 13 multi-racial students, and 68 white students in math, and 83 African-American students, 27 Asian students, 16 multi-racial students, and 118 white students in reading. So similar to how MSUP 6 provides a scoring breakdown that includes total population and then also student group populations. So we're focused specifically tonight on the growth of student group populations. So where the student group matches or is less than the percentage of the total population, we have put those numbers in blue. And where the percentage of that particular student group is higher than the group in the total population, we have put those numbers in red. That's to highlight disproportionate data. So in order to maintain our anonymity, there are some groups that are not going to be represented throughout that data. As we look at this

124table, you will notice that the total percentage of African-American students in the district is 12.8%. But the percentage of African-American students falling below the threshold in math is 25.6% and in reading is 33.2%. Those numbers are highlighted in red to show that disproportionality. So that's just an example of what you'll see as we go throughout the presentation. So the second table is going to show us those potential areas of disproportionality in our data by groups that receive a specific or targeted support plan like an IEP plan, a 504 plan, or a language acquisition plan. So in line with the spe the previous slide, those groups in math and reading that are at or below the percentages of the total population are noted in blue and those that are above the percentages of the total population

125are noted in red to show that disproportionality. As we examine this particular data table, we note that our percentages in math and reading for our students with IEP and language acquisition plans are above those of our total population. So both of those initial data slides are simply to just inform you like what is the general makeup of our students last year that fell below the threshold. So the next several slides, we're now going to start looking at growth for these groups. And that's really the key to our MTSS and our intervention processes. So these next two slides are just kind of the the big number overall slides. And like I said, the grain size will continue to get smaller. So here we've broken down math and reading by growth that our students are making in

126STAR and NWA indicators. We are defining growth by any positive change in the score between the fall and the spring assessments. So in the 2024 2025 school year, you can see that our students were showing growth across the board. But the importance of this slide to this particular data presentation is the growth of that group of students that we're zooming in on. And so you'll notice those are both in blue. That group is noted in blue because they demonstrated growth at a larger rate than the total population. And while this is one data indicator in the larger picture of our students, we are encouraged by that data and its connection to the intervention processes that we are continuing to refine as part of our system. So, as Molina also just spoke with you about, there

127are also some projected growth numbers that are provided for us by the companies or by the state. And so, this next table is showing that based on the norms of growth provided by STAR and NWA, our students are scoring below the our students scoring below the threshold are making larger gains in projected growth than our total population. So, the slide before was just general growth, right? This one is the projected growth. And the goal for students that score below the threshold is to achieve on average more than a year's growth in a year's time. So that's what we want to try to get to. So again, you'll notice some encouraging data in this table that shows us that our students scoring below the threshold are making some gains. So now we continually bring that grain

128size down again. So, our previous growth tables have told us that our students that score below the threshold are growing in reading and in math, right? So, that's what we just looked at. But as we keep breaking it down, we're going to start to see it now again by our student groups by race and ethnicity. So, those with numbers too small to maintain confidentiality are not included in the table. And as a whole, large percentages of our student groups that fall below the data threshold are demonstrating growth. We are continuing to move them forward. In this slide, we highlighted blue those groups that are demonstrating that growth at the higher rates than the total population. And in red are the groups that are demonstrating growth at lower rates than the total population. So in math,

129as you can see here, that is our population of multi-racial students. And in reading, that is our population of African-American students and they are just slightly below that growth threshold. So then we'll kind of continue that going to the smaller sizes. So, similar to that previous table, this is now the breakdown of math and reading based on those STAR and NWA normed data. So, we're back to projected growth again that is provided for us by those companies or by the state. And this is for our students with a support plan in place. So, those IEPs, 504s, and language acquisition plans. The majority of this data is highlighted in blue, but we are remaining cognizant of the data highlighted in red showing disproportionality in the math IEP and 504 growth data in comparison to the growth

130of the total population in math. And that growth of the total population, if you remember, in math from a previous slide was 94.97. So that bar is set pretty high. And now we're going to go kind of back to that projected growth, those norms set by STAR in NWA and the approximate amount of students that are growing in relationship to that norm. So this table returns to that idea and shows projected growth by race and ethnicity. When we look at all of our students who fall below the threshold as one group, they were demonstrating that projected growth more often than the total population. This continues to be true for the groups broken down by race and ethnicity with the exception of our African-American math data. And then finally, similar to the previous slide, we're looking

131again at projected growth. And those students scoring below the threshold are making projected growth when we consider IEPs, 504s, and language acquisition plans. And as we examine our 504 data, this appears to be an area of growth for us as a district. And the data indicates a need to focus more specifically on both math and reading for our students with a 504 plan. So a part of our story, a part of our story is not just the data um but what we do with that data. And so we wanted to share our process of when an assessment window closes what happens um for us. I don't think this is the right I can talk from that one. [laughter] Okay, you can go. If you put it back up, I'll just talk from now. We're going

132to skip a couple. It's I I'll just talk from whatever we've got, but I can't click at the moment. I'm gonna have you pretend that you're looking at some things. I mean, some of it some of it you've already seen. You want to drive for me? Okay. Um, so if you remember the hexagons when we were talking about the hexagons before of our overall MTSS process, um, we're really talking specifically, um, once a data window closes around the strong collaborative teams, um, and the continuum of tier support and personalizing and individualizing practices to respond to data and plan to address learner needs. Um, so we can set up Edge Climber to automatically run reports for us once data are entered into the system. And so this slide here shows you we're actually shifting now to

133to this school year's data to talk to you for about educ. So we're shifting out of the 2425 school year into this year because this is the most accurate data. And I'll tell you why in a minute. Um but so we can automatically run the edgeclimr system to set up the system to run a report for us when a testing window closes. Um so this right now shows wind down when we closed an assessment window this fall. Um and 59 students at Widown scored at or below the 32nd percentile on STAR. 32nd percentile is important in this story because of reading success plans. That's the first threshold. So we're casting the first wide net um with the state assessment data. So then we look start to zoom in on those 59 students um and start

134to look at that. So NWA and STAR we look at as essentially universal screeners and then from those data that determines where we go. um from there Gina. So when a student's >> Yeah. So not Oh, this is >> okay. So my but nothing's happening there. >> So I'm going to talk without slides being >> okay. >> All right. Um so when a student scores below an established threshold so some of the things that we've already talked about so 46th percentile 50th percentile the team look at other data points so subcores classroom performance etc and then they determine if and what additional data are needed um to to make a decision about um a student's um plan of service. So the team once they've made the determination about what additional data they're going to gather,

135they gather it and then they analyze those data and put a plan and service in place. So the next thing that you would Okay, the next thing that you would be seeing at this point [laughter] um is uh a slide that talks about the interventions that we have in place this year. Um and so tier three interventions this year um and we planned with Edge of Climber to uh last year we started to roll things out and pilot them and then this year things are established K through five um K through eight and then we're working to establish them as students age up in the system. Um but so what you will notice is that this year K through eight currently we have 240 intervention plans tier three intervention plans in place. um sorry 240

136intervention plans in educ 206 of those plans are tier three academic plans offered by 15 different faculty members. So 102 of those plans are in math and 104 of them are in literacy. Um that represents 184 unique students. So there is some overlap of some children having a plan both in literacy and in math but it's not a significant um overlap. And then the last slide that we would have been showing you is what an intervention looks like um in in edge climber. And once we put the intervention in place, we set a goal for the child. Um we determine a progress monitoring tool and then we start to track attendance, the goal, the exit criteria, and then we provide the individualized or small group instruction using those tools and collect the data with the

137progress monitoring tool. So, what we can confidently say is that we're well on the journey of ensuring that all of our students show academic growth and well on the journey of showing that we know our students well and that we're responding to their needs. What questions do you have? [laughter] >> Thank you. Yes. Who has questions? First of all, I just want to say I appreciate the mini assessment in the fall and not just waiting for the spring to receive all, you know, all of the information. I like that um you focus this just on that one student, that one student group, the one group of students so that we can um have kind of like a midyear update and not receive it all in the spring. I like breaking it up into two separate

138ones. So, thank you for that. Does anyone have questions on it? Jason, I >> I don't really have a question. I mean, I just wanted to echo that. I just want to thank you guys for preparing this and and for the conversation. I just, you know, this is something that's a topic that's particularly important to me. So, I appreciate it being, you know, the focus on an agenda item. And um I I don't know many I mean I'm not an expert in every school district but like the fact that we're able to have this conversation about our student group population speaks to the culture that we have around this topic and the fact you know that we're willing to put some numbers in red and put some numbers in blue I think just speaks a

139lot to the team here and the focus that we have on that and so for that I just really thank you guys. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Anyone else? >> I want to thank you also. This is great. I I asked some questions beforehand and you 100% explained them just now. So, thank you. Um, and I just want to like point out for the community that not only do you have you shared with us information about student groups below the threshold of I don't know if it's for this one 32ish percentile or something, but that you're also looking at kind of the the middle group also that you're not only looking at these at the below the threshold student. >> Yeah. So these are actually below the 50th or below the 46th. Great. >> So

140thank you. Yeah. That's good to know. >> Um, I just have a tech question. Um, does Educ pull in that data for Star and for NWA easily? Is it like a >> It's a direct easy. >> Oh, cool. >> Star and Educ Climber are owned by the same company. So, that one is a really easy one. And then NWA has made it an easy import. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Our other assessments are not as easy to import. Um, so we have I have a departmental assistant who helps pull in all those other data. >> Chris, >> um, I just want to say um, thank you for this as well. I'm really happy to hear all this um, now instead of having to wait for it. Um, especially because you have such good news. >>

141Yeah. I just want to make sure that I that you hear me say that I heard that really good news and I'm really proud of of that work. So, keep it up. Um, and I did get to see the entire presentation. So, don't worry. We did see your amazing slides. They were very effective. >> I was pretty proud of them. >> I [laughter] should be You should be >> I really do love Edric Climber. >> It is amazing. >> No, we're good. [laughter] >> Thanks though. >> No, I really did. the slides were, you know, very helpful. I read I looked through all of them. They were very easy to understand and and again, it was it's very clear the work that you're doing. And from uh from a parent point of view, someone who's

142been in this district, you know, now my boys who were at two-year-olds at the family center are now are 20. um this is a very different school district from you know this what what you're providing here is steps above what they got provided. So I'm just thrilled by how much it's changed in and grown in that amount of time. That's remarkable. So keep up the good work. Thank you for what you do. >> Thank you. And I know um I have or we all have um sung the praises of Edgie Climber in the past, but it's really great now to see how it's evolved and all the more data we now have entered in it. You know, from when you know, it took time of course when we started, but it really is so great

143to see that and how we can meet individual student needs with all of that data in one place. It's really great to see. So, um yeah, thank you for the good news. Thank you for your work. And the most important part of the presentation to me was the second half. What do we do with the data >> and everything you presented there and what we saw um what we have seen before tonight is the most important part and we're doing great work. So thank you for pointing out that part out. Did you have a question? >> No, I just have a comment. So the the good news for me is that you have actionable data and you're taking action behind it. I just want to be I guess I just want to say out loud

144that if you're one of these families though that has a child that is African-American that is not um doing as well as the as you know peer groups that are in the same class. This may not feel like good news and probably doesn't. So, I just want to, you know, make sure that in our praise for the tools that we have and everything else that the takeaway for me is that um there are interventions in place to help those students. You now can identify exactly who those students are. Um and if there is any silver lining, it is that um they're outpacing the growth in this school district that they would otherwise experience if they went to another school district. It does not mean that there's still not a lot of hard work between the

145teachers and the specialists and um those students in order to get them to the point where they're feeling as successful as other students that are in the district. So that's it. >> Good point. >> Okay. Anything else? Okay. Well, thank you Robert and Molina. Thank you very much. Okay. Policies tonight. We have um five first readings and I believe five second readings of policies. So the first reading um Dr. P um policy ACA sexual harassment um do you Chris want to read the motion and then we'll wait I don't know why there is a motion. Oh this one we're only doing one reading right because we're changing the title. Yes, this one we're you're right. This is the one we're only doing one ring. So, go ahead and read the motion and then we can

146>> I move that the board of education approve the change to Title 9 coordinator from the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, the assistant superintendent of equity and student services. >> Second. >> Okay, it's been moved and seconded. So, are there any questions or comments on this one? >> I just want to point out something I discussed with Cameron. >> Yeah. um that this policy refers to another policy AC that has people in charge that have titles that we no longer have in our district. And so that policy is going to be coming to us soon to >> to update that as well. >> Update. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Good. Okay. Policy IGB programs for gifted students. Um does there's no motion on this. Again, first reading. >> Oh no, we needed to vote. Sorry,

147I forgot [clears throat] about the this one was just a first reading. Okay, all those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes for the first reading only policy ACA update. Okay, now we'll move on to IGB programs for gifted students. Does anyone have questions or comments on this one for Cameron for Dr. P? Thank you for making the changes that >> putting in the changes that I had suggested. >> Yeah, >> for sure. >> Yeah. Anything else? Okay. How about policy IGBCA programs for homeless students? Any questions or comments, suggestions for that one? No. Okay. Um policy IGB-1 students in foster care. Okay. No. Okay. Policy JHDF, Suicide Awareness and Prevention. Are there any suggestions for changes in this one? >> Yeah, Chris. >> Okay. Let me see where um does Chris

148know about the edits? >> No, I'll bring it up after. Um >> yeah, >> go ahead, Chris. Yeah. >> Um it's under for students who may be in suicidal crisis number four. Let's see. Do you see where I am? >> Yes. >> There's there's two and then there's a one, two, three, four. Uhhuh. >> Does everyone page three? >> Yes. It says um conduct a brief of the response with the crisis response. Sorry, a debrief of the response with the crisis response team. I love that that's there. I'm wondering if that should be a little bit less vague. Um because when we're talking about some a team that has come together to um manage a student who's actually in suicide crisis um there are going to be many things that those uh that team experiences

149um on an emotional personal level. So when we talk about debriefing you know that part of me that knows about crisis intervention etc therap you know all that kind of you know posttraumatic therapy etc knows that that's part of that debriefing but this really doesn't say any of that. It just talks about it doesn't give any delineation between what we're going to debrief on as terms in terms of what did we do well what did we learn from this what what are our areas of growth and then separately um how are we as a team individuals personal personally doing um so I didn't have exa I started to mess around with some language and I can get it to you um but I didn't you know completely you know I I wanted to see how

150everyone else felt about that whether that you felt that was necessary. But I could propose some language. I just don't have it right this second. But >> just so I understand, are you asking is is your question or your point about the membership of the CRT? >> No. >> Or is it more the procedures and prescriptions are to what they should be discussing. >> The second thing you said >> what the debrief is correct entails. >> Yeah, that would be great if you sent that language over. And I think that's a good segue into >> Well, >> but go ahead. I think we're probably >> I mean, I don't know that that's I don't know that's I'm not against making sure that's as important of that's a really important conversation to bring up. So that's

151not my point, but that's that strikes me as below the level of policym that's more procedure. >> Yeah. >> Oh, procedure is what you mean. >> Yeah. I was going to echo exactly what Jason just said. So everything you're talking about is important. It needs to be part of what the CR team action plan is, but their action plan may be different than what is written into the policy. >> Sure. Yeah. >> Or separate. It just lives in a separate place >> document. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. >> But everything you're talking about is >> Yeah. >> important. >> Okay. >> That's important to make sure that disc that goes into the discussion of whatever the >> procedure. Exactly. >> Which we don't see. >> Right. I would also say on that number four, that exact

152sentence she's pointing out, for whatever reason, the entire document uses CRT, but that sentence spelled out crisis response team. I don't know. It's not a big deal, but I just was curious why that was different. >> It pro I mean, if Leo were here, he would say change it to the acronym, >> right? >> Because it's kind of >> it's just inconsistent. I just didn't know why that one wasn't the same. >> Okay, we can change that. So, so how are we going to know from this that that debrief includes what I said? >> So, and again, I think this is a good segue to go into I think the whole Pam and I were talking about the entire section and just kind of improving some of the language that is within it. Um so

153a possible proposal that we have and this could be a part of the second meeting would be you know after any crisis situation CRT members uh would brief uh the response document actions taken and identify opportunities for improvement procedures and support systems. So it can be fleshed out a little bit more just by adding some more clarity in terms of what the process looks like without actually going into a lot of specifics. >> Yeah. >> Um Okay. >> And we talked about and and Pam you can share as well. We talked about just kind of that section, you know, um, in its entirety with just making it a bit more clear. >> Okay. >> In terms of, you know, what our process is and kind of the steps we follow. >> Great. >> So, what

154I brought up um was that whole section called response plan and they divided by students who may be at risk and students who may be having a crisis. >> Right. And I felt like the people that those should be combined into one and that at a policy level we should not separate who may be and who who may be at risk and who may be in crisis. That I believe that that is a decision that is made by people who are licensed and trained in risk assessment. Yeah. >> Um so we combined it. I gave him some wording for that. It was sent to MSBA. I'm happy to read it. I don't know if I should, but just the bigger picture is just to combine it. >> Okay. >> Oh, yeah. Exactly. That's exactly the

155point. Yeah. >> Yeah. Good. And MSBA, I think, approved it. >> Yeah. MSBA um you know a few minor tweaks just in terms of you know um >> structural things but yeah MSBA was fine with the changes. >> Okay good. So we'll see that when it comes >> to the second reading >> for the second reading. >> So that the point is that it's just clear in the policy that any student who is showing any sort of suicidal risk or thoughts or intentions is the policy guides all people not separate post evaluation. >> Right. Correct. >> Okay. But how do I know from sitting here since I don't look at the procedures that I how do I know that that's there? Can you how do you reassure me that that that's actually getting done for

156our faculty? >> Yeah. So as it kind of as it kind of outlined um you know each building you know combined with district personnel there's a crisis response team. So anytime we are within a crisis um or the risk of one um we follow the process that is in there kind of to a tea in terms of assessing the child having one of our licensed um clinical social workers run the assessment. Um then that usually goes into you know the action plan for the safety plan. So a safety plan is something that's progress monitored. Um it could be a matter of you know resources. It could be a matter of you know you know other outside agencies that we referred the family to. Um and then within house we would develop a safety plan which

157is progress monitored by the uh by the team within the building. And that team usually will consist of um of course your administrator, your counselor, social worker depending on the building. If we're at the elementary level, your IC, you know, would be involved as well. Um possibly folks from central office depending on, you know, the level. So our director of student support has been a central you know key person and being a key cog and the response teams as well as you know helping with the structure with those as well. So it just kind of depends on you know students teacher you know but the main core people would be that administrator that counselor you know that social worker that would be a part of that. So you don't you can't tell me right now

158from your knowledge whether or not that debrief outlines that it would be discussing both the the learned you know the things that we learned from the debrief plus the emotional um you know place of each of the people that were involved in it. >> Yeah. So that's a part of our um that's a part of our postension process. So anytime we >> you say you have read that is what I'm asking. >> Okay. Great. That's all I need to know. >> Okay. That's it. Thank you so much. >> Okay. Anything else on this one? No. Okay. Thank you, Dr. P. So, now I think that was the last first read. Yes. So, now we have some second readings uh up for adoption. The first one is policy DFA, revenues from investments and use of surplus

159funds. If you would read that motion, please 7.6. I move that the board adopt policy DFA revenues from investments use of surplus funds as presented. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Um any questions or comments on this one? >> Okay. All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? No. Okay. Motion passes. Now, um 7.7 policy DFA-1 revenues from investments use of surplus funds. I move that the board resend a policy DFA1 revenues from investments use of surplus funds. >> Second. >> Okay. Moved and seconded. All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. That motion passes. Now policy DFI-1 setting tuition for district programs. I move that the board adopt policy DFI-1 setting tuition for district programs as presented. >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. All those in favor? >> I. >>

160Any opposed? No. That motion passes. Policy DGFA, Federal Programs and Projects. DJFA. Thank you. >> I move that the board adopt policy DJFA, Federal Programs and Projects, as presented. >> Okay. All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes. And the last one, policy KK, visitors to district property and events. >> I move that the board adopt policy KK, visitors to district property and events as presented. >> Okay, moved and seconded. All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes as well. Thank you. And moving on to 8.1 academic calendars um that we're voting on as well. Will you read that motion? >> I move the board of education approve the academic calendars for the 2026 27 and 2027-28 school years. >> Second. >> Okay, this has been moved and seconded. And

161are there any questions or comments for Dr. Soulberger on the calendars presented? Jason, do you have a question? >> Anyone else? Um just so the board knows and everyone knows I was on the calendar committee this year with um a group of a diverse group of stakeholders, administrators, teachers, parents, support staff and um we met maybe three time four times to come up with the calendars. Um there are a lot of parameters that we are working between. So there are some compromises and concessions to be made when we are creating the calendars most of which comes from the state. So um anyway it took four meetings to get here was my point >> five or six. Yeah, >> we did >> we kept making calendars for um the 25 no 26 27 school year and

162then we modeled the 2728 off of that >> and there I would say there's no significant changes to like our current calendars. >> No, it it stayed pretty consistent. When we tried to get creative and make shifts, >> it never worked. >> We ended up liking the way we started it. So, >> I would just say to everybody, enjoy your Indian summer next summer because we do start later because of the state requirement. Yes. >> Of not starting 14 days before the first Monday in >> and Labor Day, the way Labor Day >> Labor Day falls >> um very late this year in the calendar. >> So, you will have almost the entire month of August off. >> Yeah. >> For the first time in a long time. Okay. Um so, it's been moved and

163seconded. All those in favor I any opposed? Okay, motion passes. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um, okay. 8.2. Would you read the motion, please, for the comprehensive literacy plan? >> I move that the board of education approve the district comprehensive literacy plan as presented. >> Okay. This has been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments for Dr. Garganigo on the literacy plan? Anyone did you have a question at the end? Okay. Anyone else? >> No. Okay. >> There is one thing I wanted to point out. Yes. [laughter] >> I think you wrote this answer. Um I had asked so this is the literacy part and I had asked about um the amount of writing that our students writing and reading that our students are getting >> nowadays compared to the olden days. Um, and

164as I will say what I think Melena said to me is a part of the literacy curriculum review, they're continuing to look at the practices in all areas. And um, this past summer, they put an emphasis on increasing the volume of writing for all grades >> for the middle school. We did a middle school rewrite >> for middle school. >> Yeah. >> Great. Okay. >> Which I thought was great. >> I'll just say that it's incredible. what you're doing. I mean, I was just blown away by it. And um >> um it's just a mile a million miles away. >> So, and you know that and I love you for it. So, thank you. >> It's a very impressive plan. >> It's online if anyone would like to look at it the way we um

165Okay. All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? No. Thank you. Motion passes. Um, we read the 8.3 title one plan. >> I move that the board of education approve the district title one plan as presented. >> Okay. Moved and seconded. Any questions on this one for Dr. Garganigo? Okay. All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? No. That motion passes as well. And one more. The bond underwriter engagement letter. I move that the board approve the engagement letter for underwriting service with Piper Sandler for issuing voter approved general obligation bonds. >> Second. >> Okay, this has been moved and seconded. Any questions for John Brazil on this one? >> John, can you just comment a little on the selection of Piper Sandler for their services here? >> I'm sorry. I'm sorry. >> The selection

166of Piper Sandler as the bond underwriter. >> Uh they have issued the existing debt. They've been the long-term uh underwriter and financial adviser for this district. I saw no reason to look elsewhere. >> Yeah. Big learning curve if we would have picked somebody else. >> True. >> I just wanted >> and we've been happy with them, I assume. >> Sometimes. Yeah. >> Yes. They they very good company done excellent work for us. I have a lot of confidence in them. Their staff's been with them a very long time. Know the markets well. >> Okay. >> Thank you. There's no fee for their pre- bond issue services uh which are mostly financial advisory and getting things ready for the bond issuance itself. >> Believe me, they'll get their fees. >> If voters approve this, they'll get

167their fee. >> All those in favor? I. Any opposed? No. Okay, that passes as well. Thank you. Moving to the consent agenda. I move that the board approve consent agenda items 9.2 through 9.6. >> Second. >> Okay. Moved and seconded. Any brief comments on anything in consent? No. >> Okay. All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Okay. Consent agenda items pass and we are on to board communications. Um Ben, did you have a technology committee meeting? >> I did. Yeah. How was that? >> Uh today in fact >> um yeah it was the second one. Um today the group was split into AI and onetoone device committees. I chose one to one. AI is just like I can't I can't get my head around it. Uh no it is actually both very compelling issues. I

168feel like for me I think the um being on the oneto ones uh is kind of something I have a lot of experience with. I'll be interested in the in the process which is really really cool. I I feel like uh Luke and Molina and the team there are putting together a great kind of process and getting a lot of feedback. It's just kind of great to be in in the midst of the teachers and hear them talk about their kiddos and what they use and like why and what could be better. So um so yeah, so um it'll be interesting process. I think come um spring we should have a recommendation on device uh kind of direction, >> right? So yeah, >> good. >> I just have a question on the AI front. Is

169there somebody that's in that group either external or internal resource that has a lot of expertise on large language models? How do we know that we're talking about the right things? >> Um I can't say really. Uh I mean I think it's uh so we have a bunch of our tech folks are engaged. Um so there's that and I think uh um yeah we have science teachers. We have teachers that are are using AI today or they have at least a strong uh feeling for it. I would say like in terms of >> So it's more users than developers of the technology. >> It's not No, no, it's just it's all just teachers and on staff. There's no I may be the only external person. >> Okay. >> Uh so yeah. >> All right. Well,

170I think at some point probably I I work in a lot of AI with our with um outside of the schoolboard. Um, it's probably worth getting somebody who's developing AI or involved in the development of AI to ask for their input on how they think it might change the educational landscape for better or worse. >> Yeah, I think the other thing to mention is that um, you know, we are plugged into like IST and other >> kind of um, >> uh, tech oriented education organizations that that have a lot of opinions on these things. do. So, but yeah, I agree with you. I mean, the more information the better. Um, so yeah. >> So, can I follow up on that? So, to follow up on that, um, last week I went to the AI symposium

171at MSBA. So, I spent all of Wednesday talking, listening to that exact thing, which is um, you know, how can we harness this tool for good for our students and make sure that it's use being used properly. And I went to as many of the presentations I could. I wish um more of us had been there because they were really great because they talked about exactly that issue which is how is your school specifically you know figuring out how to integrate it and what policies are you know exist around it and if we don't have a policy we should sort of I heard amazing stuff so I was hoping I was going to talk to Stacy but I think this is something that I would you know as a board member I think we would

172all like to sort of know where we're at on this topic. I wouldn't I would love for it to end up being a you know presentation that we that we get to hear what it is that the district has in mind for you know tackling this this issue in terms of making sure that our policy is in place that of course as a board we have to do that but there should be consequences in place there are so many things but um I want to say that overall in addition to just hearing about all these like sort of logisticals um things. It was a very exciting um um like frame of mind that day and it it wasn't this sense of oh people are going to use it to cheat. There was this sense of

173okay people use things to cheat all the time. They always have. They always will. But this is actually a tool that we're going to be now able to use. And if we do it correctly, if we introduce it properly to our in our school buildings, and if we have great policies, and if we have educators that are educated on how to use these, not only do our educators become better by using it, but so do our students if we really implement it properly. So, um, you know, I was kind of the same way, like AI is like this big scary thing, but I left that that that symposium feeling like as long as we have a grasp for how it fits into our strategic plan and we are very clear with our buildings and our,

174you know, administrators and our students and our teachers about what we expect to get from this tool. It's could be an incredible thing. But I think I think as a board I think we would love to hear what the where that plan lies, you know, and where what's the status of >> technologies doing a self-study right right now. Exactly. So I'm sure there will be a presentation. >> Exactly. So yeah, if that could be a specific part of that, that would be excellent >> because I think our parents, right, they're all wondering the same thing like, wait, what what's my is my kid allowed to do this? It was f the resources that I got from that symposium were fantastic and I can pass those along to you because they made they had some great

175recommendations about how each each teacher can say here's here's a a sample um uh rubric of here's what you can and can't use AI for on this exact assignment. I mean it there are students and teachers already thinking about this that we can go and use these resources that they've already established um that are out there and you know the sooner we do that the better. So, it is helpful that we're in our tech study right now. This is perfect. >> Um, Pam, there was an equity there was an equity committee meeting last Wednesday that I unfortunately was unable to attend because I was at a board co community coffee. However, thank you Cameron for updating me. Um with the focus of it was um kind of a takeoff of last one which is we've

176been doing this for five years. What is the next five years going to look like? What do our stakeholders want? What do our students want? What does our faculty want? Um and to really focus on that part of the strategic plan of this being a place for everyone to grow in head and heart and looking at the sense of belonging. Is that good? was um I don't know if Ben or Chris or both of you went to a safety and security meeting recently >> and I also went to teaching and learning. You guys hear way too much. >> I was going to say that next. >> I'm gonna be real brief on these. >> Um safety and security committee meeting, first one of the year. Um Jim Bernell was there and reviewed all the fire

177signage stuff that's been going on. It's been a very large project. It's almost complete. Um, we talked about the status of the vestibule at the Greyhound entrance. That's almost complete, too. Of course, we had some windows come in that didn't fit. Awesome. Um, uh, let's see. Mike reviewed the changes since we met last time in like the cameras, the EOP, and the BAP, the updates that we have for our emergency operations plan and our building emergency action plan. So, he just gave an overview of all the amazing stuff that he's doing, as well as get speaking again about strategics and um the he was just about to have another meeting with them about the you know issues that we're having and you know have them continue to use this product as as as efficiently as

178possible. So yeah, great meeting, many participants. >> Okay. And Chris went to teaching and learning for me. >> I went to teaching and learning for Stacy >> and that was an interesting meeting um because it was a little different than normal because they Molina did a lot of talking and she doesn't usually. Usually it's much more interactive, but she apologized profusely because what she had to we we went over the um MSTEP. We went over um the three goals, our three goals of our strategic plan. We talked about um the accomplishments we have in each one of those goals. And then our like next steps for each one of those goals. And then the second half of the meeting was us making sure we are in compliance with Title One. And we talked about um

179the needs assessments and um etc etc about in order to have parents involved in our title one discussion which is required by MP6. >> Thank you. Um okay and the other only other two things I wanted to mention quickly which Dr. Patel mentioned earlier, just so everyone knows, I want to thank all of my fellow board members who went to the Missouri School Boards Association conference, annual conference in Kansas City. Looking forward to hearing about um not just our wellness center presentation, but the other breakout sessions that everyone attended. And wanted to thank board members and the community who showed up to our board coffees and conversations. We had two of them um in the last couple weeks, which were great. And um you know we felt we feel good about making ourselves available to

180the community and it was really nice. Um and lastly um on behalf of the board just want to wish Felicia Felicia Smith best of luck in the future. This is her last meeting with us and we will miss seeing you around. So best of luck in the future. And with that Chris will you read the motion to adjurnn. >> I move that the board adjurnn. >> Okay. All those in favor. >> Any opposed? Okay. board uh meetings adjourned. Thank you.